“They have cows here!” she almost shouted. “It’s not an unreasonable request!”
“All right, take it easy. There’s no Italian dairy conspiracy, okay? If I had my money, you could have milk with every meal and twice before bedtime. And room service would bring you milk every hour if you wanted. And I’d—I’d buy you your own dairy farm and they’d ship the good stuff to you wherever you were in the world that week.”
“That’s … sweet,” she said, and he decided to ignore the surprise in her tone.
“Because when you’re not in Italy, you’re elsewhere, and you liked living in Boston except when you were living in the country. You’re, what’s the word? Enigmatic?”
“Or I’m pathologically unable to settle down in one place.”
“Oh, baby,” he said, reaching out and linking their pinkies. “We’re kindred spirits.”
Another giggle. “You sound creepy when you leer and call me ‘baby.’”
“Shut up and pretend to be wooed by my sexy voice—”
“You do have a sexy voice,” she interrupted, and then blushed for some reason. “Sometimes I wish you didn’t.”
“No need to lie,” he said grandly. “Listen, I flew however many miles between Vegas and Paris and Montreal and New York and Vegas again and Majorca and Tokyo—”
“That’s about thirty thousand miles.”
“Jeez, that’s amazing! How’d you do that?”
“You’re not the only world traveler in this bed. Also, math.”
Oh, crap. Why’d she have to put it like that? Not about math. The other thing, and now he was thinking about all the world travelers in bed together. Specifically Delaney and him. Together. In the same bed. Together. Touching pinkies! Which sadly was not a sexual euphemism.
“I’ve been traveling since I was a kid—mostly just in the States—and when I was old enough, I did my work—the charity—all over. But the thing about milk.” She was sitting up straight again, gesturing as she got into the story. A good story, judging from her expression. “Once when I was thirteen, it was just me and two other girls on this big farm outside St. Cloud—that’s in Minnesota. They had dairy cows and chickens, and we had to feed them. I thought they’d just eat grass all day, but it’s not like it is on TV.”
“Is anything? Stupid misleading television programming.”
She grinned. “Yeah. Point. Anyway, the first couple of days sucked, but the food made up for it. Mrs. Hardy was a great cook and everything was from scratch—I didn’t know people could bake a cake without a box of cake mix before I stayed with her. And there was a pool, and we could jump in once our chores were done. So we’d get all hot and sweaty and we could just jump in the pool, we didn’t even have to take our clothes off! Good thing, too, because we didn’t have swimsuits.
“Anyway, by the third day we had the routine down and it was work, y’know, but it wasn’t difficult and it didn’t take more than two hours. And it was kind of fun. The animals were nice, they never tried to hurt us. Okay, once a cow ran Crystal down, but it was kind of her fault—she got between the cow and the feed.”
“Never get between a cow and the feed?”
“Never get between a cow and the feed. Besides, there was so much cow shit, Crystal wasn’t hurt. She just sort of got pressed into all the muck and had the breath knocked out of her. And when I yanked her out, there was this awesome splooch! as the muck slowly gave her up.”
“This is a wonderful story.”
“Isn’t it? And then all the food and plenty of time for homework after supper and after that we could do whatever we wanted. And Mr. Hardy was gone most of the time, so I didn’t have to worry—I mean, the girls and me and Mrs. Hardy had the farm to ourselves mostly. It was really great. It was one of the best times ever.”
He forced a smile. “It sounds great.” Sure. Backbreaking work where she was paid in food. Oh, and not having to worry about being raped behind the barn. Access to a pool, but it never occurred to anyone that the foster kids might need, or even like, swimsuits. Nothing positive about Mrs. Hardy except she fed them, which, apparently, made her aces in Delaney’s book.
One of the best times ever. Jesus Christ.
“It also explains why you’re such a huge dairy snob. Which is very unattractive, by the way.” Lie. Nothing about Delaney was unattractive. Why he hadn’t noticed this the day they met was a mystery, or just proof he was a blind jackass when he wanted to be. And sometimes when he didn’t want to be.
He got a pinch in the ribs for his pain, and couldn’t hold back the yelp. “Easy! You don’t want to hurt your fingers trying to pinch through all the muscle.”
“Oh, this muscle?”
“Yeow! Those are—my—rock-hard—abs!” He was gasping around each word, because Delaney’s long, skinny fingers were relentless, like evil, sentient bread sticks.
“I can’t believe I told you that,” she was saying, never letting up on the tickling for a second. “I always tell you things I mean to keep to myself. Forget a dairy, buy a bar, you’ll be great at it and no one will care that you refuse to serve vermouth.”
“It’s the devil’s—agh! Quit! You—agh! Don’t make me—agh! My abs! My rock-hard abs! All right, that’s—huh.” He’d used his superior weight and height to tumble them over and off the bed, but somehow she’d twisted in midair and landed on top, her knees pinning his hands flat to the carpet while the tickling somehow intensified. He tried to flop like a fish on the dock, but Delaney had him cold.
“Jesus Christ,” he yelped, “the first boss I’ve had in over a decade is a dairy-loving American ninja with an Easter fetish!” He tried to buck her off, but Delaney rode him easily, and he really wished she hadn’t, because now he was thinking about another situation in which she might ride him easily, and it wasn’t exactly his fault; she was exceptionally yummy and he hadn’t had sex in days, and he tried again to buck her off and it worked just as well as it had the first time.
“Ha! Give up?”
“Uh.” Please don’t notice I’m hard please don’t pleasedon’tnoticeI’mhard. “Yes. Sure. Um, listen, I don’t suppose you’d be interested in—”
He cut himself off, since someone was fumbling with a key card, and then the door was thrown open and Sofia and Lillith were there, and spotted them on the floor, which, for some reason, didn’t phase them even a little. She immediately rattled off a bunch of Italian, and they both frowned, Delaney because she couldn’t understand, and Rake because he could. (Lillith seemed neutral.)
“Wait, so the church you didn’t think you could go to you can go to?” he said for Delaney’s benefit, and then, to Sofia: “Ho ricevuto questo diritto?”
“Yes.”
“I just came for my toothbrush,” Lillith said, and disappeared into the bathroom. Sofia barely noticed; she seemed a little frazzled, but the good kind. Her carroty hair was standing out in some kind of orange nimbus, and she was wearing purple—again! Her outfits made her look like a mobile migraine. “But we must be quick, Delaney.” And she actually hopped in place, like a frazzled, giddy rabbit.